December 5, 2025 8-10 PM

Event Type: Lecture and Stargazing
Title: The History of the Solar System: Insights from JWST Observations of Asteroids
Lecturer: Katherine de Kleer
Position: Professor
Institution: Caltech
Abstract:
Earth and the other planets in our Solar System were born 4.5 billion years ago out of a disk of dust and gas orbiting our infant Sun. Some of the big open questions in this field are how, where, and when that dust coalesced into what became the precursor objects to our planets and then the planets themselves. Answering these questions requires a multi-pronged approach: we look at planetary systems like ours forming around other stars to see this process in action, and we study the leftover fragments from this time period in our own Solar System: asteroids and meteorites. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and other observatories, we can identify the detailed composition of asteroids, which are made up of the same materials that formed our planets long ago. Such observations give us a new window into the early history of our Solar System.